“had we but world enough, and time”
I'm just now emerging from a haze of paper writing to take stock of my situation, before I dive back into job applications and wedding planning. With my ICML submission done, I'll next get the ball rolling on writing my thesis. And I just downloaded the six IJCAI papers I agreed last year to review.
Huh, it's 2009 now. Barack Obama is the president. It's also the year of the ox; I entirely missed the Chinese New Year celebrations that coincided with my paper deadline. Sigh.
On a more tangential note, I just learned that Neil Gaiman won this year's Newbery Medal, for The Graveyard Book. I adore Gaiman's work and I know he's written youth-friendly stuff like Coraline (which I especially adore) and Stardust (whose movie I enjoyed), but it's still weird to think that the preeminent award for children's books went to someone I know best for writing The Sandman for DC's "mature readers" imprint. Anyway, I looked back at the list of previous winners and found many of my favorite childhood stories represented. Ellen Raskin's The Westing Game is my overall favorite and still the best mystery novel I've ever read. The Grey King from Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence and The High King from Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles hooked me on the fantasy genre. To my surprise, I also found on the list Robin McKinley's The Hero and the Crown, the only fantasy novel I've ever started and been unable to finish. (I think. I am fuzzy on whether I managed to slog through C. J. Cherryh's Fortress in the Eye of Time.) I don't even remember what I found so objectionable about it. I'm tempted to give it another try after all these years....
Huh, it's 2009 now. Barack Obama is the president. It's also the year of the ox; I entirely missed the Chinese New Year celebrations that coincided with my paper deadline. Sigh.
On a more tangential note, I just learned that Neil Gaiman won this year's Newbery Medal, for The Graveyard Book. I adore Gaiman's work and I know he's written youth-friendly stuff like Coraline (which I especially adore) and Stardust (whose movie I enjoyed), but it's still weird to think that the preeminent award for children's books went to someone I know best for writing The Sandman for DC's "mature readers" imprint. Anyway, I looked back at the list of previous winners and found many of my favorite childhood stories represented. Ellen Raskin's The Westing Game is my overall favorite and still the best mystery novel I've ever read. The Grey King from Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence and The High King from Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles hooked me on the fantasy genre. To my surprise, I also found on the list Robin McKinley's The Hero and the Crown, the only fantasy novel I've ever started and been unable to finish. (I think. I am fuzzy on whether I managed to slog through C. J. Cherryh's Fortress in the Eye of Time.) I don't even remember what I found so objectionable about it. I'm tempted to give it another try after all these years....